I heard the door to the principal's office start to open and figured I should look attentive. This wasn't entirely my battle. I was only there showing moral support for my two best friends turned drill-teammates now I suppose. Physical and moral support given the get-up I was wearing to match them. I was encouraged out of my seat in the waiting room when the office door appeared to be opening and the three of us stood up to be escorted in.

The principal's door closed shut as abruptly as it opened, then appeared to swing open wide followed by a dramatic exit from the varsity football coach. His face was red, and it was obvious there had been yelling in there. Adrian Reed walked out after Coach Craig, and I had never seen a look like that on his face. He brought his estranged expression to the ground as he started past us. Principal Sabella closed the door neatly behind him, nodding at his surrounding staff with a polite "nothing to see here" smile to save face. He approached us while following behind the other two. "I'll be right with you ladies. Just give us a moment."

Adrian cut his eyes at me as they walked by us. They were steel blue, and I couldn't help but feel the concern he had in them as he approached and looked up at me. He wasn't choked up. He was mad. Before I could look away from the intensity of his face Coach Craig spun around exiting the main office and walked back toward Adrian.

Adrian stepped backward and turned to face him, putting his back in front of me. He had nowhere else to go. The crazed coach lunged closer and stuck his finger in Adrian's face. Adrian was less than two inches from me. He was practically covering my whole body. If you had randomly approached the scene, it would have looked like he was protecting me from Coach Craig, which obviously wasn't the case. However, I wasn't sure what the case was.

I had never seen a teacher, or a coach for that matter, accost a student like that. Certainly not in front of other students, the principal, and his administrative staff.

"Let me tell you something, boy!"

My God, the coach had Adrian pinned, and Adrian had me pinned behind him. I kept trying to step or slide back out of the way, but there was a chair against the wall behind me. Nothing would budge, and three bodies, including the principal, all stood in a cramped but appropriate distance to the left of me. I had nowhere to go either. There was a plant next to the chair behind me, separating me slightly from the other two girls and the principal, and I hoped it was covering the momentary bind I was in. Adrian was backed up so close to me, I could feel the heat off Coach Craig's red face, and if he had spit on Adrian when he shouted, it likely would have landed on my face as well.

"You just made the biggest damn mistake of your life." The coach stepped closer.

I felt a sudden warmth on my left leg even through my ridiculously thick flesh-colored, dance tights. It was Adrian's hand. What was Adrian's hand doing on my thigh in the middle of a fight with a coach in the principal's office? I was sure it was an accident, and he was trying to brace himself not to fall backward onto me while the coach was unexpectedly yelling in his face. The kind of mistake you make of accidentally brushing against someone, and they shift or move right away, no apology necessary...except I couldn't shift or move. I felt an electric charge shoot up my leg when the hand on it squeezed where it touched.

Adrian's fingertips slowly spread apart and squeezed the side of my thigh gently, but firmly, and his back was even closer against me now, as in our bodies were touching. If someone saw that part out of context or through the office window, it would have looked inappropriate. What was happening?

Was he holding onto me for moral support?

"This isn't' over son, I'm telling you that right now!"

"Jerry- Now, that's enough." Principal Sabella stepped in trying to stretch his neck past the group of us girls to get closer to the situation.

"I'll call his damn daddy! We're not done here." Coach Craig stood in Adrian's face a moment, looked back at the principal, then swiftly turned to exit, pushing the main office door open wide in front of him. The door swung back so powerfully that a swoosh of air blew across Adrian's face and mine. I watched the back of his dark hair blow just above me. I assumed my pulse was racing due to the excitement of the traumatic situation.

I took a deep breath to slow my heart from jumping out of my chest, but then I smelled him, oddly for what felt like the first time. It was a smell I recognized. I knew him and had been around him my entire life, but somehow it was heightened. Sandal-woodsy, a bit sweet like maple syrup at breakfast, and then a hint of something dark and expensive from cologne he must have put on earlier that morning. I could smell his hair and skin. Okay. Why was his hand still on my thigh, and could I move now?

Principal Sabella made his way through everyone to Adrian.

"Are you alright, son?"

I felt the fingertips release me and slide down from where they squeezed me tightly before they completely released me. I felt a pair of eyes to the left of me watching. If what just happened looked as odd as it felt, it did not go unnoticed.

"Yeah." Adrian finally answered the principal. "I've got to get to class."

"I'm sorry Adrian, I don't think either one of us expected that reaction. Well...Why don't you come by my office before you go home today, and we'll check in over this, yeah?"

"Thanks."

Adrian took a half step forward and I exhaled for what felt like the first time since this bazar madness was unleashed. He turned to me, his face above mine looking down at me.

I could hear the principal addressing our little group beside me on the other side of the large plant, yet my eyes were transfixed on Adrian's. I don't know if I was waiting for an explanation for his altercation with Coach Craig, one for practically groping my leg, or if I was waiting to see if he was okay. All the above were brand new territories for me when it came to Adrian Reed.

He was still less than two inches from me. His hand landed on the side of my waist, and he looked at me for an additional moment. He gulped as if he was coming back from being out of it.

"I'm-um. Sorry." He said it slowly, and in a low, quiet voice. Something happened to me when he said that to me. It was like a million butterflies were released in my stomach, and where his hand rested between my ribs and waistline, all I could feel was...heat.

I saw Lynn looking over. I turned to look at her and her face went from mine to his hand on my waist. Then she watched as it peeled off me and he turned to exit the office.

"Come on in ladies." The principal motioned us in as if nothing had happened with Coach Craig. Lynn's eyes were still wide on mine. She tilted her head and gave me an incredibly inquiring look. Surely, it was meant to be a look that suggested she was just as confused by that moment as I was. However, she seemed shocked at me, as if I had something to do with what just transpired.

As I followed suit and went into the office, I kept replaying the events in my head, overanalyzing how it happened, why he touched me like that, and more over... The part that was even more unexpected, why did it make me feel like that? And why did I feel so caught? I didn't do anything. Maybe that's it... I mean, I didn't move away. Should I have gotten out of the way even if it meant pushing Adrian into Coach Craig? Somehow it felt like he needed me there. Uh oh. There it is. Since when did Adrian Reed ever need me for anything? Since when would I give two shits if he did?

What if he just needed a warm body because Coach Craig was pretty fucking scary? He could have simply wanted the assist, or maybe he misgauged where everyone was standing and thought I was Lynn standing behind him. He's her best guy friend. That would make sense. Uhhhh, Lynn. The look on her face...as if I hadn't told her something or...

Okay, this was getting crazy. I just needed to calm down and retrace my steps. What was the moment before? How did this even become a moment? All I know is a little over a half an hour ago I was getting ready for the pep rally...

45 minutes earlier:

I was opening my locker door when my Biology II book fell to the bottom as I reached for my make-up bag. I guessed that book was going to stay there this week as well. I'd have to skip something and make it to lab the following week, or I could forget about it. I heard familiar voices approaching behind me, and I almost turned around out of habit and smiled. Instead, I quickly remembered when I saw the flash of the sky blue and maroon and white uniforms coming my way that I wasn't one of them anymore.

"Hey, July! Haven't seen you come out for break in a while, where've you been?

Licking my wounds in solitary, so you wouldn't have the satisfaction of clawing deeper into them. Okay, that was harsh, these were my friends, or used to be. I turned toward them. Suddenly, Devin Scott, Brooke Pender, Dane Fraser, Shelby North, and Hanna Lewis were surrounding my locker in their brand-new fly skirts. It was almost the way they used to last year. The worst part about the whole scene is Shelby North wasn't even a cheerleader. She'd never had to try out for anything a day in her life. She just happened to be abnormally gorgeous. She had a 5'7" model body of a figure on a five-foot frame. She had somehow coined the combo of being gorgeous and cute, and all the guys nicknamed her "Cosmopolitan" or "Seventeen Magazine" behind her back.

Not only that, but I hated the way Devin Scott said my name. She elongated and broke up the two syllables in July as if every time she said it, she was making fun of it.

Again, this was the 90s. We didn't have gender fluid or unisex names to represent human beings. They were directed toward masculine or feminine. So, when parents named a girl a masculine name, like Devin or a boy a feminine name, like Tracy or Ashley, it was unique and deemed hot, and they were automatically popular. It was a phenomenon, and Devin Scott reaped the benefits of it as the most popular girl in my class. She was also a Scott. Regarding those founders of Pure Pines, if you were a Scott, a Childress, or a Bishop, you had it made. She was bossy and self-assured, but she wasn't altogether a horrible human being, at least not when we were kids.

She did get her rocks off by screwing with people, and I couldn't help but think by the way she said my name she found it humorous and was always on the verge of making me look stupid for sport. You'd think with the whole gender switching name thing, that a somewhat unusual name like July would fall in that category. Not a chance. Oh, there had been a few Summers or Autumns, and of course, April was a common name. I even met a lovely older woman named May once, but July? Let's just say I was never praised for its uniqueness, only more often than not asked, why?

July was the middle of the summer, the middle marker of the year, and in our neck of the woods the most dreaded part of the season. July in East Texas was hot, I'll say that again, stick to your car seat, burn your hand on the dash or steering wheel, hot and humid like no other time or place on earth. Regardless of central air, and surrounding lakes offering reprieve, and regardless of looking forward to the fourth and firework shows, its flaws were inevitable.

I could almost imagine my name for someone with light features or even a dirty blonde with green eyes, maybe one of those damn Palomino horses, but I had dark brown hair and brown eyes, winter coloring. Apparently, it was simply my mom's favorite month, and she thought it might brighten up the Edwards part...left over from her divorce eighteen months after I was born. Thus, I was named July Elizabeth Edwards. Go figure.

It had never bothered me as a child. I liked the way it rolled off my cousins' tongues when they called me across a field or demanded I give them back their new Transformer because we were about to play Hot Wheels or Legos. Their little accents when we were kids, made it sound like an important name.

Confidence is fickle and most often a fleeting attribute. From junior high onward, I had never introduced myself without feeling stupid, gimmicky, or as if I needed to apologize for it.

"So, I guess we'll see you out there, huh?"

I guess so, Devin, unless we are going to two different pep rallies, or there is an additional school gym I don't know about where they send the lepers and the people who don't get to wear fly skirts. What a C*nt-a-saurus rex!

"Yeah. See you out there." I gave them a half smile and turned back to my locker. I hadn't changed into my new uniform yet for the Drill Team in question we had never had before. Our uniforms had supposedly been delivered to the band hall early that morning, and today would be the debut of our first routine as well as the uniforms. I'm sure that is what they were lurking about to see. Boy, were they in for a surprise.

Two double doors slammed from the same direction they came from, followed by two senior varsity cheerleaders headed down the hall toward me. Jebus. I didn't know this was witching hour. I left home room early to get my curling iron plugged in, I wasn't trying to hit every branch on my way down. Talk about a day of reckoning. Seniors Savanna Baker and Sarah Weems were headed my way. Savanna kept walking as if she couldn't be bothered, but Sarah ducked into my locker with me and threw her arm around my neck as if she was giving me a pretend "noogie."

"We miss you SO much this year! And, as the only senior who can't tumble, it sucks not to have someone to clap on the sidelines with while they're doing Olympic level gymnastics down the track. Bunch a' FRE-AKS!

I loved her for her candor. Sarah was a great cheerleader and a lot of fun, but she was old school and didn't tumble either. She was one of the few that scraped through without being able to do a flip flop even. They had so many returning girls that would be seniors who had been on the squad all through high school. It would have been crazy if some of them didn't make it just because almost all the juniors and new sophomores could tumble extremely well. It was abnormal to have so many.

"Will we see you at the Tomlin Twins' party?"

"It's not until next week."

"Yeah, and... you're still going right?"

"Did, Savanna cheat on Drew with Jessie Hines and lie about it?" I suddenly had my confidence back.

"Ugh, I'm not going to make it to basketball season without you!" She whispered as she headed off. "Oh, hey wait-"

I felt her arm pulling me into her and walking me down the hall a bit.

"Don't forget to knock em' dead out there today. It's really great what you guys are doing. Especially you...give us bitches a run for our money."

And she was off. Sarah was funny, sweet, ridiculously thin, and brave. She was one of the most popular senior girls for her wit and the ability to not care what anyone thought of her. I did admire that she was an anomaly at Pure Pines, but it must be said that's easy to be when you are a varsity cheerleader who's been in the in-crowd your entire existence. It's not too far-fetched to exercise your confidence when people fall at your feet regardless. Even so, it was sweet that she knew this was an awkward day for me. She was a senior. She had nothing to lose. God, it was only October, and this still felt like the first day back dealing with this crap.

The thing was, I was never supposed to have been a cheerleader in the first place. Come on, it was Texas in the 90s, everybody with a pulse wanted to wear a cheerleading outfit. I had been the fluke at the end of eighth grade. I was the chunky girl that everyone teased a little too much because I took it better than the girls who were actually large enough to call fat. That would have just been too cruel even for the in crowd. There were only a few spots for freshman coming in, and if you were one of the lucky eighth graders who made it, you would walk the halls as a JV Cheerleader your freshman year...automatic status.

I never even thought of it that way. I just showed up because it was the only opportunity to go into high school with something on your plate, other than band, which I was already in. I remember a teacher looking me over and suggesting I wait and try out for mascot the following year when that position came available. My mother and I heard that and raised it one. Short and chunky of an eighth grader I may have been, but unbeknown to the rest of my grade eight class and apparently that teacher, my bonafide stage mother had me in every dance class imaginable since I could walk. Truth be told, she hoped it would "lean me out," but let's not ruin a positive thing with what we now know of her motivation as being body shaming.

My mom took one look at me and said, "Daughter, do you think you can make cheerleader this year, or would you like to refrain from tryouts and wait for mascot?" Knowing me so well, she couldn't hide the smirk on her face as she waited for me to respond in front of the woman. "I'm not really interested in being a mascot." My mom smiled again, and pointed to the line for me to sign in. Less than three hours later my name had been announced as one of Pure Pine's next JV cheerleaders.

I wish I could say that nothing changed for me, but the truth was, it changed immediately. The remaining weeks of my eighth-grade year were met with shock, scrutiny, and a seat at the popular table I had not anticipated. My mom and I spent the summer working on weight, as in dieting and trying to figure out cute outfits to put me in for my first cheer practices that would be throwing me to the wolves before my first day of high school. That, and we prayed for a growth spurt. I wasn't that bad, just short still, with Mary Lou Retton thighs. She was an Olympic champion gymnast when I was a kid who carried all her extra weight and muscle in her thighs.

The hardest part about that year was negotiating friendships. Friends are something that shouldn't have to be negotiated, they should just be there. But what about when I couldn't be there because I was eating lunch with the in-crowd. What about those real friends, the ones that never called me chubby or cared what I wore to school? They just liked to laugh with me, talk about all the things we didn't understand about sex and teach each other about all the different music we liked. I missed them the most. The hardest part about those friends is that they weren't necessarily a collective "them" or all in one group. There were several of them dispersed throughout my high school, forming different relationships and talking about music and laughing about the unknowns of sex with new friends. I knew it was part of it all. Part of growing in general, but I never thought leaving someone out or excluding myself from them would be the result. It felt lousy and made me feel false as a person.

The truth was, there was nothing you could really do or say to fix it. If you tried to be a hero and sit with your old friends, you would almost insult them with your presence. In terms of Pure Pine's pecking order, it wasn't that I had climbed up the ladder above anyone, I was just in a different position to be pecked.

Because of that cheerleading uniform, I always had a seat at the popular table both freshman and sophomore year, but there was a constant reminder that I hadn't been one of them from the start. I was never really allowed to fit in entirely. I was kept at bay to do their bidding until I scored points if you will. For example, if I stumbled into a great outfit and an elite upperclassman noticed, or I established a friendship with one in a random class I had with them, that gave me clout and helped make up for me lagging behind them and still being in band. Had one of the elites in my own class or their upperclassmen asked me out...as long as it wasn't someone they had their eyes on, that would have upped my ante times two.

As it were, if no one picked you out, they would be keen to source you out or try to put you with someone they thought appropriate to your status. It was sort of their own incestuous match making thing. The sad part was, as in most small schools, everyone had been friends or involved with each other in some way back in grade school. It's not like they forgot hanging out with that person or eating snow cones from a Snoopy shaved ice maker with them on their back porch. Unfortunately, the American stereotypes of high school behavior suggest that whether you had a growth spurt before the next year or if you just happen to naturally be good a sport or not, or if your older brother was popular, or your mom was on faculty, or you could afford name brands AND they looked good on you, all dictate who people say you are and how they treat you. They dictate if they want to be friends with you or not and who you should be friends with. Again, they made up their own rules at Pure Pines. Even though they were unwritten, somehow, we all knew them and much worse, abided by them.

During my first two years of high school, I never asked why I wasn't invited to any of those bitches' houses to spend the night apart from a cheer squad thing, and I never invited them to mine either, not that they would come. I went to cheer functions with them, group parties, and pretended to know what they were talking about when they discussed the latest time they hung out I was not privy to.

That's the way they wanted it. It was as if they dared me to ask, but if I did it would have ruined it. If they could just continue to dangle the carrot, then they had the power to give it to me or throw me a bone when they wanted to. I wasn't their only patsy, and I was probably ranked a bit higher in order than some, although I hate to admit that.

It was an eye-opening experience and one that was shifting and happening all over again now that I had not made varsity cheerleader. My status, position, who I was my junior year was changing. So ridiculous. Now, everyone who felt I disappeared on them freshman year suddenly thought they had dibs to snub me. I didn't blame them even though they were wrong. It wasn't me doing it. It was our system, but we were all pawns in it, so it may have been fair.

By your sophomore year at Pure Pines, real choices had to be made. If you were excelling in girls' athletics volleyball, basketball, track, then band just got in the way. Athletics and band were the two major competing activities. Cheerleading was like student council, if you got picked or chosen...if you made it, then it didn't matter what you did or what classes it caused you to miss, you just got to do it by rite of passage and special allowances were made.

Band fit more of the academic trajectory that was expected of all of us, while a "dump class" or lazy route was Art class, not that art was lazy, I just don't think the powers that be found it profitably stimulating enough scholarship-wise to encourage it. Most people had their minds made up for them when they excelled in a sport, others teetering between the two usually decided what would help them out socially. If you couldn't cut it taking the scraps from the in- crowd in athletics, then you may need the band, nerds and all, to have any sort of a social life in high school.

Luckily, there were enough cool people in band and a few popular upperclassmen to keep it relevant. Although, most of the in-crowd in my class had left band behind the year before, I was lucky I stayed in. I don't think they liked very much that I did. It kept me away from some of their events and out of their watchful eye twenty-four seven, but it also gave me access to a separate tier of the in-crowd-the hot upperclassmen grunge phase musicians who used band as their instrument outlet and had the cheerleaders salivating over them.

Also, Reagan, a childhood bestie and arch enemy who I went way back with was my debate partner as well as had stayed in band with me. She was popular in a different way, but in a way that had clout, even if it didn't get her a seat on the homecoming court. Then there was Lynn, who I was privileged to have landed in her court. Thank God, she actually liked being in band and didn't want to leave.

Lynn was popular with everyone and was that long-term friend who floats in and out of your life and various friend groups because she was always wanted somewhere else. Depending on whose class she was in or what major activity took over her schedule at the time, determined if you got to be around her. Her older sister had been a majorette and part of the band culture back when it was what the elite kids did. She had a follow-in-big-sister's-footsteps-agenda with it and wanted to be there too.

I was lucky to have stumbled in place with her officially by my junior year. Reagan and I decided a long time ago, even though life had put us in competitive situations, we would be the people who kept our friends close, but the two of us as enemies closer. Our friendship drove our mothers crazy. They were enemies by default, but we didn't care. We understood each other better than anyone else did, and there was no one else we trusted in each other's court.

Reagan did have status of her own. She was a bombshell blonde, but not in the cheerleader, homecoming queen kind of way. She was genuinely pretty. A classic, sophisticated beauty with freakishly pale skin that could magically tan evenly on a dime as if it had a touch of olive in it. She was book smart, had perfect attendance, was president of the student council, as well as in line for salutatorian. Her uncle was on the school board which ticked an additional box, and she drew her popularity and influence through the upperclassmen elite, for example the Tomlin Twins.

Two black-haired beauties with pale white porcelain skin and blue, blue eyes. They were unique looking alone, then add the identical twin thing, and Wendy and Whitney Tomlin ruled their senior class.

Since they were freshman, they had been notorious for having the party of the century. It was invitation only. An example of status, as it were, was that Lynn, Reagan and I were invited this year before the "in-crowd" of our class. Lynn and I had been in dance with the twins outside of school off and on our entire lives, and Reagan had been on student council, honor society, and Globe Scholars with them, before the rest of us were inducted. That my friends is called, GPA, or an attempt at a high one. I really didn't have room to talk, my grades weren't that high, but I took every AP class I could, was in gifted and talented, and every elective known to man including the golf team.

Forgive me if a didn't have time to study for a quiz or two. I say that glibly as the in crowd had also made their own rules about that. The ones that only had an A/B average in regular classes got by without being questioned, I think there was even an honor roll for that. Try taking college level math, science and English while attempting every elective you possibly could in hopes of landing a scholarship for something. Anything to get out of Pure Pines, and away from that damn water tower with the painted blonde horse on it and the graffiti of our predecessors.